AIBU to say they should NOT teach it in schools

[Calvinlookingforhobbs]

‘It’ being any problem that appears in our society... budgeting for adults, healthy eating, parenting skills, contraception, gardening, etc surely education and parenting are different?

What?

Yes let's go back to raising ignorant children because parents won't cover all these topics!!

I think you are being unreasonable, yes.

School and parents together prepare children for adult life. All of those subjects are necessary for children to learn about before they become adults.

If you want to ensure your children only learn what you agree with, you have to homeschool.

It’s annoying to have to teach things that used to be basic parent/family stuff, but ok, if there’s a need. What is impossible is wedging constant new initiatives and subjects into a week without removing anything. There is NO MORE ROOM.

I don't think budgeting, parenting, healthy eating and contraception are "problems that appear in our society" they are essential life skills.

I am far more likely to need to know how to parent successfully, or plan a household budget than I am to us the trigonometry that I was taught at school, so why should they not teach these things?

Make a list of things that schools do that could be dropped to make more space for all the new stuff.

Would you ban schools from teaching music, P.E. and cooking as well?
Yabu. I'd include First Aid as a basic life skill that needs to be taught in schools.

HerLadySheep because school is likely to be the only place where there is a specialist trained to teach you trigonometry. Surely we need to be asking more of parents (Not a vote winner I know, much better to demand more from teachers etc). I worry about how much pressure there is on kids to pass exams and study for outcomes AND cover ‘life skills’ stuff that never used to crowd the curriculum.

I feel parents should be called on to do more, not subject specialist teachers.

You are being extremely unreasonable. Not every parent is capable of teaching these life skills (e.g. budgeting, healthy eating, gardening) while others would choose to present a very skewed sense of contraception.

Far better that it comes through the school and they get the facts.

Gardening club was the most popular after school activity at my dc's school.

Why on earth not? Schools are an excellent vehicle for levelling the playing field for children who don't have families who teach them these essential things. As a teacher I think we should be doing more of it, not less. Economise on the insane teaching-to-the-test crap that's imposed on teachers by politicians with no pedagogical background and has no positive impact on outcomes for children.

UpstartCrow my goodness no! Those are exactly the subject that need more time!

And this stuff doesn't 'crowd the curriculum', it's generally all covered in a subject called PSHE, for one lesson a week, or even in formtime which happens every day anyway.

I agree, OP. Which subjects shall we stop teaching in order to cover all these things?

Or would parents like their children in school from 8-6 to fit it all in?

School is about educating children to prepare them for life as an adult. Makes perfect sense to me to include things that aren't "just" subjects but vital lifeskills. We had lifeskills classes at secondary school.

Personally I think there are huge elements of Mathematics and Science that could be dropped and that more emphasis should be place on lifeskills.

Same question, what do you drop? Say 6 hours in a child’s school day, 30 hour week. How do you fit everything in?

Greensleeves I agree with your suggestion to remove so much teaching to the test etc, but at the end of the day there is more demand for ‘higher attainment’ league tables etc etc. I don’t think teaching everything is sustainable in the long term, for our kid’s and teaher’s sake.

I worry that the minute a new damming government report is produced the response is ‘they should teach it in schools’ and thus we no longer have a philosophical approach to learning and cultural inheritance for young people. Just a system which is reactionary and too influenced by modernity.

"school is likely to be the only place where there is a specialist trained to teach you trigonometry"

No, not true anymore. There's thing called on-line courses these days. And could be better than actual teacher.

NovemberWitch perhaps we should look at the success of KIT schools and stop having a school system based on the agricultural system which requried kids Home for the summer, October and easter to work the farm!

Yes, great idea. Let's punish the children who have shit parents even further by denying them any knowledge of day to day life they could learn at school.

ShatnersWig but STEM is the future? Or so we are all told!

Certainly any primary school teacher worth his/her salt would be constantly teaching Maths/English/Science/Geography/History through the medium of these vital themes anyway. Topic work is a great holistic way to teach. Unqualified politicians can't and don't understand how that works.

A lot of parent don't teach their children about these things so the schools have to do it. I work for a bank and we offer money workshops in schools but if we don't teach them young and the parents aren't doing it either there's already so many adults that don't have a clue so the kids won't be taught by their parents anyway or they'll be taught wrong things. A lot of parent I know won't discuss sex either they are too embarrassed . My children will ask me anything and I answer it in an age appropriate way.

I think I agree with you OP. Schools have become substitute parents. I'd much rather they concentrated on teaching my dc the things I can't do.
I don't think we can make teachers responsible for everything, just because a few parents are not parenting properly - that is a separate problem and needs to be treated as such.

We did look at that Calvin, there was a proposal for terms and holidays evenly spread throughout the year, more workdays but more balanced. There have been plans for 4 terms, 5 terms and all sorts.
But no one can agree, not parents or LEAs.

Yanbu. Where does it fit in the day? Perhaps teachers could give up their free time and do it then. Or maybe we should be telling people with maths degrees to stfu about trig and focus on seemingly difficult concepts, such as the fact you can't spend £11 if you only have £10.

There is an argument that learning basic life skills is essential, when parents can't or won't. But there are far more constructive, and targeted means of delivering them. Expecting teachers to do so in order to save the majority of parents from exerting themselves is a piss take.

November Some of us have already answered your question and suggested that there are elements of Mathematics and Science that could potentially be dropped. The number of people who will ever make use of trigonometry and algebra is tiny. Anything beyond a basic knowledge prior to selecting it as a GCSE subject is, in my opinion, redundant for the vast majority of people. But personal finance and budgeting is anything but redundant.

Religion should probably be dropped if it still exists after primary school. That's for people to find out for themselves.